The Future of Internet Search

Barry Byers9, Sep, 2011

Internet search has evolved significantly in the past few years, but one thing remains common – the search box. Although search engine heavy weights like Microsoft and Google are making efforts to enhance the quality of search, all the improvements revolve around the box in which you have to enter the keyword phrase.

According to University of Washington based computer scientist Oren Etzioni, the search box is a threat to innovation in the industry. It inhibits a fundamental rethink, which is what is required for truly revolutionizing search. Progress in the development of software that can read text and understand its meaning is likely to be the driving force for change in the field of search.

IBM’s ‘Watson’ computing system is an example of such technology. ‘Watson’ is an attempt by the scientists at IBM to build a computing machine that possesses the ability to give logical answers to queries posed in natural language. The machine, named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, even competed against two highly celebrated contestants on popular show Jeopardy!

But unlike Watson, search engines need to answer billions of queries daily. There is still a long way to go for search engines to be able to offer logical answers instead of a digital index.

Mr Etzioni, in an essay available in science journal Nature, also states that smartphones could be the second impetus for change in the search industry. Revolutionary change in search industry means radical changes in optimization techniques used by SEO companies. But there is need for much more investment and further research for logical search to become a reality.